“Here a great number of disabled people used to lie—the blind, the lame, the paralyzed. One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, “Do you want to get well? “Sir,” the invalid replied, “I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.” Then Jesus said to him, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.” At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked.” (John 5:3-9)

Are you willing to be healed?

This story always strikes me. A man who spent nearly four decades as an invalid was healed in an instant, and not how he anticipated. Jesus’s question seems obvious, maybe even unnecessary. But it reveals the state of the man’s heart. He responds with his reality: there is no one to assist him into the water. But instead, Jesus demonstrates that the man doesn’t need the water to heal Him, He needs God. He offers a heavenly reality.

Do we ever anticipate our healing looking a certain way? Like the invalid, we can be stuck assuming God will heal us through a person, a prayer, or an event. Jesus can and does heal this way. But often, the plans of God may differ from our own. After waiting so long to be healed, the man was stuck on one way: to get in the water. His response reveals maybe even a sense of victimhood to being passed by others who make it in the water.

As you contend for healing, ask yourself: am I willing to be healed on God’s terms, or my own?